Digital Marketing News in the Tampa Bay Area and Vestal New York.

Is Your Website Making You Money?

Why Isn’t Your Website Making Money?

Although there is tremendous competition in today’s online marketplace, competition isn’t the only reason your website could be underperforming in terms of sales and lead generation. So why isn’t your website delivering?

No One Can Find You

It’s impossible to sell to an empty room. If you’re wondering why your website isn’t making money, it’s time to ask yourself—is anyone able to find your product or service to begin with?  For your ideal customer to find you, your website needs to pop up in your customers’ search results. The goal of SEO is to know what your target customer is searching for online, so your business can create the high-quality content to satisfy their searches.

As you develop useful, engaging content to build SEO and organic traffic, your business needs to use multiple channels to drive relevant traffic in the meantime. When using a layered approach, you will create a steady stream of new opportunities to discover leads and to convert customers from many different fronts. For more immediate results in traffic, your website can implement Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, email marketing campaigns, social media marketing campaigns, affiliate marketing, retargeting, and more digital marketing tactics while your SEO strategy builds strength.

You’re Not Driving the Right Traffic

Your website receives steady monthly traffic—even big spikes monthly traffic—yet it fails to convert. What gives? No matter how good your website may be, you won’t be able to convert visitors who are simply not interested in your products or services. Website visitors from the wrong sources will do nothing to grow your business. To have a chance at converting visitors, you need to make sure your website can be found by potential customers actually interested in your products or services—also known as, your target audience.

Once you have nailed down your target demographic, your digital marketing tactics must be tailored to attract and convert that specific audience. If you try to appeal to everybody, you will appeal to no one. The result of trying to appeal to a wide audience is often a mixed bag of unqualified traffic.

Your Website Is Slow

In a market with many options, customer experience is king. Today’s users expect websites to load in two seconds or less. Your website simply won’t generate leads or sales if people leave before it loads. No matter who your target audience is, they won’t be sticking around if you have a sluggish website. Boosting your website speed immediately enhances user experience, increasing the likelihood visitors will remain on your website and view your products or services. Review your hosting options to see what could make your website faster and more reliable for customers.

Your Website Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

In addition, more organic traffic comes from mobile devices than desktop browsers. More people are relying on their smartphones and tablets to peruse the Internet than laptops or desktops. Can your website adapt to mobile users? If not, your business is losing qualified traffic. Optimizing these structural components on your website will help your business make a good first impression and allow visitors to effortlessly interact with your website.

Your Website Doesn’t Encourage Action

Does your homepage feature a compelling call-to-action? Are you constantly guiding your audience toward a specific action? Your website copy needs to tell your visitors what to do. Landing pages with unclear call-to-actions or no call-to-actions leave your visitors to flounder. Instead, guide your visitors to product pages, newsletter sign-ups, and other relevant content.

The opposite can be true as well. Visual clutter can confuse visitors and aggressive, salesy call-to-actions can immediately steer people away. Too many links or pop-ups can easily distract and annoy people, causing your visitors to leave and not come back. It is important to strike the right balance when designing your website.

Your Product or Service Pages Aren’t Optimized

Driving traffic to your website is only half the battle—product pages will make or break your conversions.

Once you get relevant visitors, then you want them to convert. A customer may have found your product page through a search of a product they need, by clicking on a PPC advertisement, or by seeing your brand on social media. Regardless of how they have found you, it is now up to your landing page to convince them to convert.

Your visitors will be judging the quality of your products and services by their pages. Low-quality images and poor descriptions immediately cast doubt on the quality of the product or service itself. As a result, your product pages need appealing images, clear titles, accurate product or service descriptions, and useful customer reviews. Professional photography, high-quality video production, and convincing customer reviews establish trust, assure customers of quality, and help them overcome potential objections.

Start Earning Money From Your Website

Your website is an incredibly valuable asset to your business. It should be making money for you—whether that is directly by selling products and generating leads or indirectly by growing a loyal following.

What’s stopping your website from making money?

What Do Customers Look for in Reviews & Testimonials?

Reviews and testimonials are among the top resources for buyers. Buyers consider customer reviews and testimonials to be an incredibly valuable informational source to inform their purchase decisions because people naturally trust their peers more than they trust businesses. Consequently, this type of social proof is essential for every business, particularly businesses with online stores. 

Though your business may offer a variety of useful content, customers will still rely on personal experiences to learn more about your brand and products. And a review is just that: an honest reflection of a customer’s experience with your products and brand.

But not all customer reviews are created equal. What aspects of customer reviews and testimonials are the most important to potential buyers?

Authenticated Reviews

Buyers look for reviews because they don’t want to just take your business’s word for it—they also want to hear from a real person. 

As a result, having authentic reviews from validated users is the single most important factor for buyers. Today’s buyers can be wary of customer reviews simply because of the amount of review fraud out there. Buyers’ main fears when it comes to customer reviews are reading false reviews from people who have never actually used the product or reading reviews from people who have been paid or incentivized for positive feedback. 

For this reason, user verification ensures the legitimacy of the written feedback and that buyers can trust the opinions in the reviews. Customer reviews have the most impact and potential to convert when the reviews are visibly authentic. 

In-Depth Reviews

The next thing buyers look for in reviews is the level of insight they offer. Buyers want descriptive and comparative reviews that will inform their purchase decision. Buyers are usually unconvinced by general, vague reviews that give no reason as to why they liked the product or why they didn’t like the product. 

As a result, the more detail in a review, the more likely a buyer will trust and benefit from the review. In-depth reviews legitimize the reviewer’s opinion and potential buyers then have greater confidence in trusting their opinion. Consequently, short, vague quotes and one-line testimonials are not social proof enough to convince potential buyers. 

Balanced Reviews

Buyers want to see the good and the bad. In fact, buyers actually consider mixed reviews more helpful and trustworthy than 100% positive reviews. Particularly, potential buyers are looking for reviews to be balanced by “pros and cons.” Not only are these types of reviews more helpful to buyers in their purchase decision, but a mix of good-and-bad impressions actually further validates the positive reviews. In addition, reviews that are simply too glowing immediately set off warning bells for the buyer, who may suspect the reviews are fraudulent or paid-for. 

Businesses, be not afraid. The presence of negative feedback in reviews must seem like the last thing you want to be featured on your site, but the presence of these reviews does not necessarily prevent buyers from making a purchase. On the contrary, it actually validates the positive feedback and also helps buyers know what to expect post-purchase. 

Does Your Business Have a Customer Review Strategy?

How well do you understand the buyer’s journey? Is your business’s website optimized with the resources buyers need to convert? During the buyer’s journey, people consistently consult reviews and testimonials to see if they trust the product, service, and seller.

Customer reviews have a powerful impact on your brand and your success—we’ll help you put a review strategy in place that increases the participation of your current customers and secures new ones. 

Contact Sun Sign Designs today for a free strategy session! 

Sun Sign Designs Matches LEC Fundraiser & Donates $2,000

Sun Sign Designs matched the Life Enrichment Center’s Facebook Fundraiser that raised $2,000. With Sun Sign Design’s matched donation, the LEC raised $4,000 in funds for the North Tampa non-profit to continue to thrive and grow!

The Life Enrichment Center (LEC) is a private, non-profit organization that operates as an innovative arts education center for adults. Located in North Tampa’s Forest Hills neighborhood since 1980, it is one of only a few centers across the country focused on redefining and reshaping retirement and the experience of aging. Its cultural arts program has received national and international recognition and serves as a model of a successful community-based organization, serving adults primarily 50+.

The Life Enrichment Center’s mission is dedicated to creating a high quality, accessible arts and culture platform that focuses on the importance of lifelong learning in the fine arts, health and wellness programs, and cultural humanities for a vibrant adult community. Visit the LEC’s website here.

Fawn Organics Launches Organic Bicycle Wash

Sun Sign Designs is excited to share that Fawn Organics has launched a new product: Organic Bicycle Wash!

Bikes offer a sustainable, healthy, and pollution-free way to travel and enjoy the outdoors. Unfortunately, some cycling must-haves—like cleaning sprays, lubes, and oils—can be harmful to the environment due to their toxic formulations.

It’s next to impossible to clean oil and grease from a bike with water alone, which is why bike-specific cleaners developed. Conventional bike cleaners contain solvents that breakdown grease and oil effectively; however, these same solvents contain chemicals that harm the environment. These toxins are especially hazardous to humans, animals, and plant life when they reach water sources.

Safer for You + Safer for the Planet

Fawn Organics knows cleaning your bike is essential to maintain pricey bike parts and to enjoy a smooth, fast, quiet ride. That’s why Fawn Organics developed an eco-friendly, organic bike cleaner, so bike owners never have to compromise a clean bike for harmful chemicals. Unlike other bike washes with harsh chemicals, Fawn Organics’ new Organic Bicycle Wash features an eco-friendly, biodegradable formula that uses plant-based ingredients for a toxin-free clean. It is also paraben-free and dye-free!

With this spray, bike owners can quickly clean dirt, grit, grime, grease, soil, and storage dust that build up on their bike’s frame, saddle, spokes, brakes, chain, gears, handlebars, and wheels. The Organic Bicycle Wash is safe to apply on all bike components—but still tough enough to get the job done. It can be used on carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum, steel, rubber, and clear coat. Fawn’s formulation coats and protects your bike’s metal surfaces more than regular soap and water to extend the lifetime of your ride. Cleaning your bike is as simple as spraying the Bike Wash on and rinsing it off for quick, toxin-free maintenance.

Need some more Shop Talk? Click here to read a more in-depth guide on how to clean your bikewith the Organic Bicycle Wash!

Our Mission

At Sun Sign Designs, we love to find and support companies that want to make a positive change in the world. We partnered with Fawn Organics and worked closely with them to develop and launch their line of organic cleaning products. Sun Sign Designs is committed to social good and making a social impact—we believe that Fawn Organics’ latest launch, Organic Bicycle Wash, will bring positive change for the environment, cyclists, and bikes.

Contact Sun Sign Designs CEO Stephen Powell at [email protected] if you are interested in selling Organic Bicycle Wash wholesale, or if you are developing a product of your own. We love helping mission-driven businesses!

Visit the Fawn Organics shop here to check out their latest product launch!

Sun Sign Designs Attends the Hillsborough Community Outreach Program

Sun Sign Designs attended and volunteered at the Hillsborough Community Homeless Outreach Program hosted by Citylife church in Tampa, Florida. The event took place on April 28, 2022, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The community outreach event allowed people without housing the opportunity to take advantage of the many support services available at the event.

Area vendors and volunteers helped provide services during the event, including but not limited to: showers, hygiene bags, hot meals, food stamps, haircuts, clothing, blankets, immunizations, pet supplies, health screenings, mental health services, substance abuse services, contact with employment agencies, and city services.

In order to provide better management and insight into the outreach program, Sun Sign Designs built a platform that will organize, manage, and capture the data of the vendors, volunteers, and any individuals who signed up to use the services at the event. The platform simply requires the name and email from individuals seeking support services. In addition, the platform asks these individuals what types of services they would like to see offered at the event. Therefore, the platform and data catalog will help find the gaps in needs and provide better offerings at future outreach events.

With these data insights, the organizers of the outreach program will know what types of services are most needed at the event, will be able to contact previous vendors and volunteers to return in the future, and, most importantly, will be able to contact attendees via email to remind them of future outreach events.

Sun Sign Designs Charters the Boy Scouts of America, Pack 244 Vestal NY

Sun Sign Designs has recently become the charter organization for Pack 244 of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). A charter organization is a group whose objectives, mission, and methodologies are compatible with those of the BSA.

The charter organization relationship is often the cornerstone of the Scouting program and keeps the BSA packs moving forward. As Pack 244’s charter organization, Sun Sign Designs will see to the advancement of pack members, maintain a unit committee, encourage unit meetings, promote well-planned unit programs, cultivate resources to support the pack, oversee unit finances, and secure district help when needed.

Sun Sign Designs is proud to sponsor and support Pack 244. As the charter organization, we endeavor to serve BSA youth diligently as well as sustain and grow Pack 244. Sun Sign Designs will help Pack 244 continue to move forward in the Scouting program and accomplish Pack 244’s goals regarding: scholarship, practical skills, conservation, character development, career skill development, community service, and more.

Sun Sign Designs CEO Stephen Powell is currently the Chair of two Boy Scouts of America packs.

Using Customer Reviews to Enhance the Buyer’s Journey

When it comes to committing to an online purchase, do reviews influence buyers?

Think about it. When purchasing a new product, which do you implicitly trust more: the sales-pitch copy found on a product’s landing page or the customer reviews of the product? During the buyer’s journey, people consistently consult reviews and testimonials to see if they trust the product, service, and seller.

Reviews are one of the most valuable informational sources used by buyers to inform their purchase decisions. Though your business may offer a variety of useful content, customers still rely on personal experiences to learn more about your brand and products. And a review is just that: an honest reflection of a customer’s experience with your products and brand.

Objectivity & Authenticity

Customers don’t want to hear how great your products are just from your company alone—they also want to hear from real people who have used your products. Reviews from verified customers and reviews without your business’s marketing buzzwords secure the buyer’s trust. Verified, authentic reviews allow your potential customers to get a sense of how your products or services perform and how your business treats its customers.

Though customer reviews may be featured on your website or social media, they are viewed as objective information from an outside source. Why? Because they are coming from people who are unaffiliated with your business. Most importantly, they are coming from people who were previously in the same position as the potential buyers reading reviews. Consequently, potential buyers can connect and trust these unofficial ambassadors of your brand.

Social Validation

Customer reviews also serve to validate your potential customer’s perception of your products and brand. For example, a buyer may view your website and immediately feel your products are high quality based off of the first-rate website design, copy, or product images. Once the potential buyer reads positive reviews on the brand, their initial reaction to your brand is socially validated. Why is this important? Because this potential buyer now immediately becomes a part of a community based around the love of your business. This sense of social belonging is incredibly strong and effective in triggering purchases and brand loyalty.

Using Reviews during the Buyer’s Journey

As more and more content becomes available online, it can be difficult for buyers to determine what’s relevant and needed to make important purchase decisions. Though customer reviews are usually short and simple, these candid summaries of your brand and products can provide just as much informational insight as a long-form blog or guide. As a result, customer reviews and testimonials can be used as every stage of the buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, and decision).

Awareness

In the awareness stage, a person becomes aware of a problem or need and look for answers, resources, research data, opinions, and insight. Reviews and testimonials that detail how a product or service solved the customer’s problem or need are particularly useful in the awareness stage because it helps the buyer understand their problem more and it alerts them to a potential solution.

Consideration

Conversely, the customer may start their buyer’s journey with a certain type of product or service already in mind. As a result, the customer will search for the product, generally without any awareness of existing brands that may meet their needs. Businesses with reviews on their products will show up in the search results.

Consequently, your potential customer will lean toward products with reviews rather than products with no reviews. These product reviews will then jumpstart the buyer’s journey specifically with your brand. Generally, customers are not aware of the brands they are interested in until the decision stage. But customer reviews can jumpstart their awareness of your brand. Potential customers then may go to your brand’s website, product landing pages, or your social media.

Buyers using reviews during evaluation want an efficient way to find specific details about how a product works in different situations. Reviews can also help them compare the strengths and weaknesses of products on their shortlist and gather important surface information.

Decision

Customer reviews are perhaps the most important during the decision stage of the buyer’s journey because they have the potential to “seal the deal” for both buyer and seller. At this stage, the buyer is committed to making a purchase, but they are uncertain where from. If customers are looking at an unknown brand or an expensive product, they are even more likely to assess customer reviews before purchasing. In this stage, customers want to be certain of the product quality and the brand experience.

Does Your Business Have a Customer Review Strategy?

Is your business ready to benefit from customer-generated content like reviews and testimonials? Customer reviews have a powerful impact on your brand and your success—we’ll help you put a review strategy in place that increases the participation of your current customers and secures new ones.

Contact Sun Sign Designs today for a free strategy session!

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Resources That Optimize Your Website to the Buyer’s Journey

If you want to improve your business’s sales in today’s online marketplace, your website must feature highly targeted content. Especially since your website is likely the first touch point a potential customer will have with your business. As a result, it must be optimized to the buyer’s journey to usher your leads from the beginning to the end of their purchasing process.

Is your website using these resources to nurture and convert leads?

Blogs

The most commonly used resources used in the awareness stage are blogs or articles. Blogs are the perfect format to write purely informational copy that help answer common questions and solve problems. They are easy to understand and comprehensive enough to answer initial questions. Educational and informative blogs also showcase your business’s industry expertise and positions your business as a leader, demonstrating why customers should trust your business.

Your business can use blog posts for every stage of the buyer’s journey. However, the content and tone looks a little different for each stage. For buyers in the awareness stage, blogs should be free of sales-focused copy and unnecessary brand acknowledgements. Why? Because in the awareness stage, buyers are simply looking to educate themselves about their problem or need. They are not ready to be “sold” yet. In the consideration stage, blog posts should have more in-depth content on different solutions that can solve the buyer’s problem. In the decision stage, blog posts can become sales-focused and discuss why buyers should choose your business over competition.

Educational Guides & Infographics

Educational written guides and infographics are also ideal for the awareness stage because they are highly informative, easy to consume, and easy to share. Infographics in particular are visually engaging and relay information in a fun, interesting way. In addition, infographics do especially well on social media. Both the written guide and infographic should remain focused on providing educational content that matters to their audience, not on selling your products or services.

In the consideration stage, buyers have a more complete understanding of their problem or need, but they have not identified a specific solution. As a result, they need resources discussing the pros and cons of various solutions. After reading an educational blog or watching an explainer video, solution-focused guides, eBooks, and whitepapers that customers can freely download on your website are the perfect next step. You can even link these consideration stage resources in your awareness stage blog posts to gently usher your leads to the next buyer’s journey stage. .

Videos

Video is an incredibly popular format to consume content. Videos are visually engaging and deliver information in a fraction of the time it takes to read a blog. Like blogs, videos can deliver purely informational content to answer common questions and solve initial problems. How-to videos and Q&A videos are great types of content for the awareness stage while comparison videos (in which your products or services can be directly compared to your competition) work well in the consideration stage. However, in both the awareness stage and consideration stage, it is important to remain authentic and not salesy. These videos are not meant to be commercials or advertisements, but helpful resources for potential customers.

Product Photography & Product Demos

Custom photography allows customers to get a close-up look and accurate depiction of a business’s products. Product photography is especially important in the decision stage because the quality of the images will directly influence a buyer’s purchase decision. If your business features low-quality product images, buyers will directly correlate the image quality to the product quality. The opposite is true as well: high-quality images suggest high-quality products. Consequently, low-quality product imagery deters buyers from entering in your sales funnel.

For the consideration stage or the decision stage, product demo videos or live demonstration webinars allow your potential buyers to see how your product compares to your competitors. Buyers want to learn how to use your product and all of its features and see how it stacks up to the competition. Product demos and webinars allow your business to educate your audience about your products, show how your brand differs from competition, and give a sales pitch.

Case Studies

In the decision stage, buyers want to know why they should choose to purchase from a certain brand. As a result, they are most interested in seeing how your business has solved other people’s problems and met their needs. Case studies provide a great format to show your leads how your business has achieved positive results. In addition, case studies don’t always have to be written—they can also be done as videos.

Customer Testimonials & Reviews

In the decision stage, the buyer is finally ready to make a purchase. At this point, the buyer has completed extensive research, understands their problem or need, and has an ideal solution in mind. Now, they may seek additional information on why they should choose a particular brand.

Your business’s goal in the decision stage should be to answer final questions, address common customer concerns, and ultimately convince buyers to choose their brand over the competition. As a result, customer testimonials and reviews are essential additions to your website. Buyers will seek out customer reviews to evaluate a brand, select a product, and feel confident about committing to a purchase.

Let your clients tell the story. Every potential customer wants to know the experience others have had before committing to a brand. Whether it is a written review or a video testimonial, your customers can powerfully endorse your business and establish your credibility by sharing their personal experiences.

Tailor Your Content to the Buyer’s Journey

We will help you tailor your marketing strategies and content to hook your customers at each stage of their buyer’s journey. Contact Sun Sign Designs if your business is ready to create a compelling content experience that engages your audience and makes you stand out from the competition.

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Creating Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Content plays an essential role in moving people through the buyer’s journey and successfully through your sales funnel.

It helps your prospective customers learn about your business and gather relevant information about your products or services while learning more about their problem or need. In addition, content positions your business as an expert in your industry, earning customer trust.

Plus, content is much more than blogs. Businesses have endless content options these days, including: videos, podcasts, images, social media posts, educational guides, infographics, interviews, surveys, email newsletters, landing pages, and more.

However, your potential customers need the right content at the right time to move them through their buyer’s journey and motivate them to convert with your business. The buyer’s journey consists of three main stages: the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage. Let’s look at the best types of content needed for each stage.

Awareness Stage Content

In the awareness stage, the buyer becomes aware they have a problem or need. As a result, their awareness jumpstarts a research process for more information on their problem. The buyer will go to search engines to research their problem and educate themselves on a particular topic.

At this early stage in the buyer’s journey, content doesn’t need to be sales-focused. Buyers are not ready to make a final decision or purchase yet. People are looking for answers, resources, research data, opinions, and insight.

As a result, content in the awareness stage should be educational and informative as well as comprehensive and easy to understand. Content types that works well in the awareness stage includes: educational blogs, videos, social media posts, webinars, articles, infographics, and podcasts.

Consideration Stage Content

In the consideration stage, the buyer has a more complete understanding of their problem or need, but they are still not ready to buy yet. Instead, buyers evaluate potential solutions and look at their best options. Since buyers have a better understanding of their problem or need, the consideration stage introduces the research of specific types of products and services in more detail.

Content that is useful in this stage includes: free eBooks, downloadable guides, white papers, free trials, quizzes, and explainer videos. Blogs are still effective in this stage. However, the tone and topics used will differ from the awareness stage. For example, blogs in the consideration stage are more sales-focused, concentrating on the brand’s products and services in comparison to competition.

Decision Stage Content

After extensive research, the buyer is finally ready to make a purchase. At this point, the buyer has completed their research, understands their problem or need, and has an ideal solution in mind. Now, they may seek additional information on why they should choose a particular brand.

The business’s goal in the decision stage should be to answer final questions, address common customer concerns, and ultimately convince buyers to choose their brand over the competition. Content needed to convert customers in this stage includes: product demos, case studies, FAQs page, product landing pages, customer reviews, and customer testimonials.

Why Should You Create Content for the Buyer’s Journey Stages?

The prospects and leads attracted through your business’s marketing efforts usually don’t come to your website ready to buy. Though you have captured their interest, many are still gathering information. With the right types of content available, your business can give them the answers and solutions they are seeking and gently usher them to convert without overwhelming them with sales-focused copy or ads. As a result, content creation centered on the buyer’s journey allows your business to constantly nurture your prospects and convince them to convert.

Tailor Your Content to the Buyer’s Journey

We will help you tailor your marketing strategies and content to hook your customers at each stage of their buyer’s journey. Contact Sun Sign Designs if your business is ready to create a compelling content experience that engages your audience and makes you stand out from the competition.

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Inside the Buyer’s Journey: Your Guide to Each Stage

Understanding the different stages of the buyer’s journey is crucial if your business wants capture potential customers and successfully propel them through your sales funnel. When you fully understand each stage of the buyer’s journey, your business has the opportunity to better position your products or services at each stage.

Becoming intimately familiar with who your buyer is, their pain points and needs, and what kind of journey they take on their path to purchasing is the most successful sales tactic in a day and age where buyers hold all the power.

What is the Buyer’s Journey?

The buyer’s journey describes each phase a buyer goes through on their pathway to purchasing. Buyers do not often purchase on a whim. Plus, even when customers do make impulsive purchases, it is difficult for businesses to track and market to spontaneous buyers with no clear purchasing patterns. These days, customers are flooded with options, so they take their time researching before making a commitment. This includes researching, evaluating, and weighing each option.

Understanding each stage of your customers’ buyer’s journey is incredibly valuable to businesses because they can clearly see how buyers progress from one stage to the next—which will be an important framework for crafting a successful marketing strategy. The three stages of the buyer’s journey are awareness, consideration, and decision.

Stage 1: Awareness

The first stage of the buyer’s journey is the buyer becoming aware that they have a problem or they are experiencing symptoms of a pain point. The buyer’s goal in the awareness stage is to clearly identify their problem and give their problem a name. As a result, buyer’s enter into an initial research phase (usually using a search engine) in which they may look for informational resources like white papers or blogs to clearly define and better understand their problem.

Example: Laura is experiencing itchy, red skin and rashes. She knows she has sensitive skin but hasn’t experienced this before. After researching her condition and reading many articles, she determines that she is most likely experiencing a reaction to her new laundry detergent.

Stage 2: Consideration

In the second stage of the buyer’s journey, the buyer has given a name to their problem and clearly defined their situation. In the consideration stage, the buyer enters into more rigorous research to understand all available methods or approaches to solving their problem.

Example: Laura is now interested in how she can solve her problem. After more research, Laura learns about many laundry detergent ingredients that could be causing her skin reaction and about skin lotions that could soothe her inflamed skin.

Stage 3: Decision

In the third and final stage of the buyer’s journey, the buyer has chosen and decided upon the method that will solve their problem. They will now search and make a list of businesses that align with their chosen method and make a final purchase decision with one of them.

Example: Laura decides to change her laundry detergent rather than buy a soothing lotion. She narrows down her list to businesses that have fragrance-free, hypoallergenic laundry detergents. After perusing each brand, she makes a purchase decision and buys a new laundry detergent.

Buyer’s Journey Insight

The common phases of the buyer’s journey show you that making a sale takes time. In fact, if your business zeroes in on prospects and tries to close the sales loop too early, you will most likely scare them off. Why? Because buyers want to trust your business before making a purchase with you.

As a result, businesses must tailor their content to build customer trust at each stage of the buyer’s journey. For example, if Laura saw educational content from a certain brand in the awareness stage and consideration stage, she is more likely to make a purchase with that brand in the decision stage. Brands that tailor their marketing to be solution-focused make their sales process more efficient and effective. Consequently, by the time a potential customer is at the end of their buyer’s journey, they recognize and trust your brand.

Tailor Your Marketing to the Buyer’s Journey

We will help you tailor your marketing strategies to hook your customers at each stage of their buyer’s journey. Contact Sun Sign Designs if your business is ready to use customer-focused digital marketing tactics that earn customer trust and loyalty.